Nor must we forget that the reign of Nero had been marked by frequent rebellions. Armenia had revolted and been subdued. At the other end of the Roman world, the Britons had risen in a bloody insurrection. And in the very midst of the Jewish war, the inevitable Gallic rebellion broke out, ostensibly against Nero personally, but doubtless impelled by motives of national feeling as well. Perhaps, if we had as detailed a narrative of the British, Armenian, and Gallic insurrections as we have of the Jewish, we should find many preliminary conditions the same. Perhaps in those countries too “brigands” and “impostors” stirred the people to revolt by playing upon their sacred traditions and appealing to their hopes of a national restoration.[323] One very curious circumstance is the association of this last emperor of the Julian house with the Jews generally and the Messiahship particularly. How far it is possible to discover the real Nero under the mass of slanderous gossip and poisonous rhetoric which Suetonius and Tacitus have heaped upon him, is not easy to determine, nor is it necessary to do so at this point. One thing may, however, be insisted upon. He courted and achieved a high degree of popularity. This is hinted at, not only in the fact noted in Suetonius (Nero, 37), that in a public prayer he ostentatiously referred only to himself and the people, and omitted any mention of the senate, but is expressly referred to in the same writer (_ibid._ 53): _Maxime autem popularitate efferebatur, omnium aemulus qui quoquo modo animum vulgi moverent_, “Above all, his chief desire was for popularity, and, to gain this, he imitated all who in any way had caught the fancy of the mob.” To this may be added the confirmatory evidence of the lasting veneration felt for his memory by the populace (_ibid._ 57) and the assumption of his name by Otho when the latter desired to court popular favor (Suetonius, Otho, 7).[324]